by David Bell
“Elizabeth?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I think I just killed my father.”
Chapter Sixty
A paramedic with a shaved head tended to the cuts on my hands, which I’d suffered when I removed the broken glass covering Ronnie. I sat on the back bumper of the open ambulance, a blanket wrapped around me against the cool autumn night. Ronnie sat next to me, and while my wounds received attention, another paramedic examined Ronnie, asking him to turn his head first one way and then the other. He shined a penlight into Ronnie’s eyes and asked him to follow the path of his finger in the air.
“You’re looking okay, buddy,” the paramedic said to my brother. “You’re going to be sore tomorrow, but I don’t think you have a concussion.”
“He was bleeding,” I said.
“I saw that,” Ronnie’s paramedic said. “It’s a small cut. Superficial. He’s lucky. With all that glass around him he could have really been sliced up.” The man pointed at my hands. “You got it worse, trying to help him.”
“She’s tough,” Ronnie said.
“Is that right?” my paramedic asked.
“He’s tough,” I said. “He saved me.” I looked to the house. It glowed with light, and the front door stood open. Richland and Post were inside talking to Beth. “They both did,” I said.
The wind picked up, rustling leaves in the street. I shivered.
“Should he go to the emergency room?” I asked.
“He’s fine,” Ronnie’s paramedic said. “He should take some ibuprofen and sleep it off. He’ll be back to his old self in a couple of days.”
“Thanks,” Ronnie said.
“Have they taken the body out?” I asked.
My paramedic turned and looked at the house. “Not yet. Usually the medical examiner and the cops take their sweet time with that stuff.”
I knew that well. Two bodies removed from the house in just over a week. Another big night for the neighborhood. They were going to ask us to leave—or turn us into a reality show.
“So she killed him just by smacking him with that lamp?” I asked.
My paramedic nodded. “He was probably gone before he hit the floor. You can do that to someone if you get them in the right spot.”
I hoped that was the end of all of it.
• • •
Ronnie and I gave our statements to Detective Post. We took turns sitting in the backseat of her warm sedan while Richland remained inside talking to Beth. It didn’t take that long. I could recall the events vividly, could still hear the sickening sound of that lamp against the back of Gordon Baxter’s skull.
When I finished my statement, Post told me she needed to get back inside to wrap things up.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Sure.”
“Beth,” I said. “My… half sister… What do you make of her?”
“She seems like she’s been through a lot,” Post said. “Hard years. We see a lot of people like that in our business. People whose lives just don’t go the way a life is supposed to.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Is there something else you want to know?” Post asked.
“I guess I just want to know if you believe her,” I said. “If I should believe her.”
“I think you know I can’t decide that for you,” she said. “She’s your family, so you have to make up your own mind about her.”
“I thought you might say something like that,” I said.
“My cop instincts say she’s on the level,” Post said. “She saved your life and your brother’s life tonight. That’s not a small thing.”
Saved my life. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who would need her life saved.
“And,” Post said, “if you want to know something else, we looked into the story she told you about why she disappeared back in 1975. It turns out there’s a detective still alive from back then, an old guy named Ron Forest. They broke up a ring of drugs and pornography in Haxton about a year after your sister ran off. The guys who were behind it were involved with a lot of things, and it doesn’t look like Mr. Baxter’s name ever came up in association with that investigation. But something like that was going on in Haxton back then. It’s a little corroboration for her story from a reliable source. And I guess learning something like that about your father when you’re fifteen years old could really strip your gears, you know? It might take a long time to get over that.”
“Or never,” I said.
“Indeed,” Post said.
“Maybe thirty-seven years of anger, thirty-seven years of living the wrong kind of life brought that lamp down on his head tonight.”
The car started to feel too warm. I still had the blanket wrapped around my body, so I reached up and loosened it from where it rubbed against my neck.
“Are you going to stay here tonight?” Post asked.
“It doesn’t sound that appealing. I need to call my uncle and tell him what happened. Maybe Ronnie and I can stay over there until… the house is cleaned up.”
“Would you like a ride there?” Post asked.
“Is Beth… is she finished?”
“Soon. Do you want to talk to her?”
“Yes, I do. I should wait and see where she’s going to stay tonight.”
Post patted me on the leg. “Sit tight. I’ll tell her you’re still out here.”
She climbed out of the car, leaving me alone with my thoughts in the dark.
Chapter Sixty-one
Uniformed police officers and paramedics remained at the house, milling around and discussing town and work gossip. They took turns showing Ronnie their cruisers and wagons, listening patiently as he asked questions about the most common reasons people dialed 911.
I used the phone while we waited. I called Paul and told him about the events of the night. He offered help immediately, insisting on coming over to the house to make sure we were all okay.
“No, it’s all right,” I said. “We’re almost finished here. In fact, we’re going to need a place to stay tonight. I don’t think I want to stay in the house after… you know, another dead body and everything.”
“Of course,” he said. “You can stay here.”
“We might have to sell this house,” I said. “It keeps accumulating bad memories.”
“Absolutely. Your mom was never attached to those kinds of things very much. Get a new house.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll worry about that tomorrow.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over there and pick you and Ronnie up?” he asked. “I can.”
“I don’t think so. I’m going to wait for Beth. She might come along with us. I don’t know if she’ll be up for driving back to Reston Point.”
Paul fell silent for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “I just… Is she doing okay? Overall. You know?”
“I don’t know the answer to that either,” I said. “But I guess I have to find out now. She’s my sister.”
• • •
It took another half hour for Detective Post to come back out of the house. Beth walked beside her, wearing a Dover Police Department sweatshirt against the cool night air. I walked up the sidewalk toward them, and the three of us met halfway. Post didn’t stay long. She excused herself, saying she needed to consult with someone from the medical examiner’s office out in the street.
I immediately wished she would have stayed.
Beth and I faced each other on the narrow sidewalk. It took a moment, but I reached out to her, opening my arms. “I hope you’re okay,” I said.
We hugged. She felt thin and insubstantial, almost as if she might slip away at any moment. She held to me longer than I held to her. When we let each other go, Beth said, “I think they’re going to bring the body out soon. I could tell they were getting ready to move him.”
“Would you like to leave?” I asked.
“I guess I should,” she said. “There isn’t much else to do here. And
it’s a long drive in the dark.”
“I don’t mean go home,” I said. “I don’t think you should go back there alone.”
She looked at me, waiting.
“I talked to Paul,” I said. “We can go to his house and stay there. He has room, and it looks like it will all be safe now.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t—” She looked around at the night. She looked at the yard and at the sky. Then she turned back to me. “I can’t be here with you if there’s any chance you believe those things that Gordon said. Either about me or about Mom. I’m a mess—I admit that. But I’m not like him. I’m his daughter, but I’m not him. All I ever wanted was to see Mom again. If you can’t understand that or accept it, that’s fine. But it’s not true. None of those things he said were true.”
I looked back at the house. It was still full of light, but it felt farther away than ever. Mom was gone. Dad was gone. At some point, a page had been turned. It was time to move forward, and I could do it alone or with the help of others.
“I know,” I said. “Why don’t we all go to Paul’s house?”
Chapter Sixty-two
Paul opened the door to our ragtag group. A long, awkward moment stretched out as he and Beth stood face-to-face on his front porch. They seemed to be taking each other in, examining and measuring. Ronnie and I stood to the side, watching. My body ached. I was sure Ronnie’s did too. But I didn’t move. On TV these reunions were always tearful and full of hugs. Seeing all this up close—living it—I could attest there was more awkwardness and uncertainty than anything else.
Paul blinked his eyes a few times and finally said, “Well, I can’t really believe what I’m seeing after all this time.”
“It’s me,” Beth said. “It’s really me.”
Paul finally got ahold of himself and stepped back. He motioned us inside.
“Please come in,” he said, his voice turning more somber. “I know you’ve all had a hell of a night.”
We all went in, then settled into Paul’s neatly kept living room. Beth sat closest to Paul on the couch, while Ronnie and I were across the room in chairs. I watched Paul watch Beth. His eyes were misted with emotion. His cheeks were flushed. He sat with his hands on his knees, his posture stiff and uncomfortable.
“I just can’t get over the way you look,” he said. “Just like Leslie. Just like her.”
“I know,” Beth said. She swallowed and raised her hand to her eye, brushing at it.
I felt it too. The whole thing. I didn’t know what happened to us when we were gone, if some part of us was still able to look back on this world and watch over our loved ones. But I wanted to think Mom was somewhere where she knew we were all together. The four of us at long last.
And I couldn’t help but think of her absence. She should have been there alongside of us. Her three children. Her only sibling.
Her family.
I couldn’t help it. I felt the emotion coming over me as well. I took a deep breath and held it in. But I couldn’t hide it all.
Ronnie reached over and rubbed his hand on my back. “You okay, sis?”
“I am,” I said. “I’m just thinking about Mom.”
“Me too,” Ronnie said.
We were all nodding. We were all thinking of her.
“She’s here,” Beth said. “I can feel her.”
“Indeed,” Paul said. He seemed to have loosened up just a little. Relaxed. He didn’t look at Beth, but he said, “I’m just so sorry for all the time you lost.”
Everyone was silent. His words hung in the room like an invisible weight. We all felt the same way. None of us could change it. That was the price Beth had paid for the events of her past: time. She’d lost years of precious time.
Yet she was back. We could all look ahead.
“Sis?” Ronnie said.
I turned to him. He was looking down.
“Your hand,” he said.
I looked down as well. A bandage had come undone on one of my fingers. A bright drop of red blood flowed from beneath it, forming a nearly perfectly round bead.
“Shit,” I said. And ran to the bathroom.
• • •
I peeled the bandage off the ring finger of my right hand. The butterfly strips the paramedic had placed on the cut had worked themselves loose, and the cut had reopened. A smear of blood ran up my finger. I turned the tap on and let the warm water run over my wound. I used a dab of soap to clean the blood.
Paul kept everything so neat. I made sure to drip into the sink and not onto the tile or the carpet. I used a tissue to stem the flow. I applied enough pressure and held tight against the cut until it seemed the blood flow had stopped.
I used my left hand to open the medicine cabinet.
“Band-Aids, Band-Aids,” I said to myself.
I didn’t see them right away, and I felt anxious to get back to the moment we were sharing in the other room.
I moved some things around and finally found the Band-Aids. I took one out, peeled it open, and managed to wrap it around my finger. It felt tight and secure. I tossed my trash away and tried to put the contents of Paul’s medicine cabinet back in order. I righted some bottles, adjusted some creams and pastes.
Then I saw the prescription bottle with Paul’s name on it.
My hand shook as I reached out and picked it up.
The cut on my finger became the least of my worries. Whatever blood was in my body turned to rock-solid ice.
Chapter Sixty-three
As I walked down the hallway, the prescription bottle in my hand, I heard faint laughter from the living room. It was Ronnie and Paul laughing. Together.
I came to the end of the hallway and stood in the doorway.
Paul saw the look on my face. So did Beth.
Ronnie noticed something was wrong with me as well. For the second time that night he said, “Sis, are you okay?”
“I stopped the bleeding,” I said.
No one said anything else. They were all looking at me, waiting.
Paul’s eyes were wide. He looked stiff and nervous again. He cleared his throat and said, “Maybe Ronnie needs to head to bed—”
“No,” I said. “He can hear this. He should hear this.” I held up the pill bottle and shook it. The pills rattled against the plastic bottle. “Digoxin, Paul? Do you take digoxin for your heart?”
Paul’s face remained frozen, a mask showing uncertainty and nervousness. His eyes ticked back and forth. If he tried to lie, if he tried to create some excuse—
But he didn’t. The mask crumpled. He lowered his head. His entire body was shriveling into the couch. He raised one hand to his forehead, as if he wanted to shade his eyes from a bright light.
“They’re my pills,” he said, his voice shaky. “But I didn’t give them to Ronnie that day. That was Gordon. He took the pills. He went to the hospital and did it. He made a flood upstairs. He had some plan—”
“But you gave Gordon the pills?” I asked. “Why?”
He lowered his hand to cover his eyes. I looked at Beth. She had scooted against the armrest of the couch. Then she stood up. She backed away from the couch. From Paul.
“Why would you cooperate with Gordon on something like that?” I asked, moving toward him. “What did he know about you that would make you do that?”
Paul was sobbing now, his shoulders shaking. He couldn’t have spoken even if he wanted to.
I said it for him.
“It wasn’t Gordon. It was you. You killed Mom, didn’t you?”
He didn’t show his face. He kept it hidden from us. He said something, something I couldn’t make out. It was muffled by his hand.
“What?” I asked.
He moved his hand aside and said, “She knew.”
She knew? What did she know?
“What did she know, Paul? What could Mom have possibly known?”
He said nothing more.
“Paul?” I said. “What? Did Mom know something… something about
Gordon or you?”
“I was there,” he said. “Beth… that night…”
“Where were you?” I asked.
Beth supplied the answer. “Oh, Jesus. It was you. You drove the car that night. You were with Gordon, and you were the one who drove me to the bus station.”
I came farther into the room. I sat in the chair I had been sitting in before. I looked at Ronnie. He stared at Paul, his mouth open. He looked confused, angry.
“You drove Beth away that night. And Mom found out. And you killed her because… she was going to report you? Is that it?”
He didn’t respond.
“That’s why she changed the will before she died. That’s why she removed you as Ronnie’s guardian. She knew you drove Beth away. Who told her? Gordon?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice feeble.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because she wouldn’t give him any more money,” he said. “And he was a fucking bastard, and he wanted to make your mom feel rotten about me and everything else in her life. That’s why.”
“And when Mom found out, she cut you out of her life.” I looked at Ronnie again. “And our lives. But why did you have to kill her?”
Paul finally spoke. “She said she wasn’t going to, but she changed her mind. She’d been reconnecting with Beth. I guess doing that brought back a lot of the old feelings from when Beth… went away. The guilt, mostly. Your mom experienced a lot of guilt. She hadn’t fought hard enough to find Beth. She felt she could have pushed the police harder and made something happen. So she wasn’t going to let me off the hook. She was going to turn me in. Gordon too.”
“But after all that time?” Beth asked. “What could they do to you?”
“We’d have faced some trouble,” he said. “Real trouble. What do you think the police and the media would think of a story like that? What would people think here in Dover? You know, there’s no statute of limitations on kidnapping a child. And that’s really what we did. Beth was a minor. She didn’t know what she was doing. Children are entrusted to our care. We can’t just… cast them out. Leslie wanted to send me to jail. I went there that night to talk to her, to try to convince her that she didn’t have to do it. She sent Ronnie away so we could talk in private.” He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “I begged her not to do it. I really did. I told her that her whole family was back together again. She knew Beth. She had the two of you. I was still her brother. I told her that—I was still her brother. But she wouldn’t budge. Her guilt was so strong, her instinct to do whatever she could for you kids. She just… wouldn’t listen.”